Troubled Waters
by marytasmin
Summary: Alternately titled: Journey To The Center Of An Egotistical Jerk With Daddy Issues Very serious daddy issues. Stacker's POV as he drifts with Chuck during Operation Pitfall. (Hansencest, but only subtextually)


oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Then out spake brave Horatius,  
The Captain of the Gate:  
"To every man upon this earth  
Death cometh soon or late.  
And how can man die better  
Than facing fearful odds,  
For the ashes of his fathers,  
And the temples of his Gods.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"Neural handshake at 100% and holding steady."

Stacker registered Tendo Choi's words, but he didn't need to hear them. Beside him Chuck was silent and still, teeth gritted and a tornado of emotions raging and rampaging behind his for-once-unsmirking eyes, but Stacker saw the storm – _felt_ it - as if it were across a vast desert, and knew the young ranger had complete control of his drift.

The two of them were drift compatible in the same way that any two highly-experienced Jaeger pilots would be – the key was trust, and it was there – but Stacker had been truly compatible with Tamsin, and he could identify the difference immediately. Chuck, he sensed, was putting forth every effort not to dwell on that contrast, though he could feel him longing for the stronger connection he had with Herc, a part of his subconscious actually reaching out, blindly and desperately, for the familiar counterpart of his father's mind.

Chuck glanced over at him, and then quickly away again. He was embarrassed by Stacker's observations. As eager to prove himself as ever, he - with something less articulate than language, but more determined than sensation - declared, "I can do this without him." Underneath the declaration, two wavering voices from deeper inside belied it, crying, "What if I can't?", and "What if I don't want to?"

Stacker sent him a vague pulse of confidence. If Operation Pitfall went bad, it wasn't going to be because Chuck Hansen was anything less than a damn fine Jaeger pilot, or because the two of them couldn't move and fight as one. After warming up Striker Eureka with a couple of trial maneuvers, Stacker knew those were two things he didn't have to worry about. They might be the only two things he didn't have to worry about.

There was a drop in his stomach as the flock of Sikorskys lifted Striker Eureka out of the Shatterdome. It vexed him to be out of the LOCCENT; he struggled with his more limited to access to information, by now used to the flurry of dozens of screens and technicians. Striker's eyes were less than useless as the Jaeger plunged into a fog bank. It would only be worse at the bottom of the sea. The team carrying Gipsy Danger advanced, and Stacker caught sight of blue and red through the mist. It was a mix of comfort – to have Mako in his sight – and alarm – to be reminded that she was hazarding her life like this.

Stacker might have told Chuck that he brought nothing into the drift, but no one brought _nothing_ into the drift. Chuck took his meaning well enough: no rank - and no history of strained interactions between a headstrong kid and his commanding officer - were going to affect their co-piloting. But it was impossible to cordon off everything. And Stacker was reluctant to admit it - even to himself - but three hours of piloting Coyote Tango solo had impaired his ability to restrict what did and didn't flow into the neural connection. It was even harder to acknowledge that the other factors - the importance of this mission, his inevitably impending death, the risk to Mako – were affecting him as much if not more than his physiological handicaps. He knew Chuck was seeing more than Stacker had ever intended to share.

But Stacker's preoccupations weren't in the forefront of Chuck's mind. He had taken a brief interest in two of Stacker's surfacing memories: his last visit to Tamsin in the hospital – the heavy words of a woman on the border with death; and a generic childhood flashback of him and Luna - brother and sister building a snowman on a gentle Christmas Eve in London. He had picked them up in the casual way one picks up a curio off of a busy shelf in a novelty shop - handling the object to feel its weight, running fingers across the various textures, turning it to the right and to the left and upside down to see the hues and edges. And then setting it back down disinterestedly and moving on to the next thing. Chuck was _singularly_ disinterested in Stacker Pentecost, which was probably what, more than anything, was bolstering the strength of their drift.

In fact, Chuck had a singular lack of interest in everything except for killing Kaiju, that dog of his, and his parents. (And Stacker wasn't yet convinced that to Chuck they weren't all just the same thing.) He had never met Angela Hansen but he had no trouble identifying the laughing blonde who blipped through Chuck's consciousness in a stilted dance - red lips, bright eyes, and the scent of lavender. They were glamorized images, touched up by nostalgia and the blurring ache of loss. Chuck let the ghost of her wander freely, along with a prancing Max whose wagging tail and adoring eyes were a feature of every cranny of this warren. Herc, on the other hand, remained in silhouette – a looming, dark figure behind the curtains of a small room where Chuck hid him from Stacker's prying eyes.

_Had_ hid him.

The flight to the drop zone did not require the pilots to operate the Jaeger; it was commonly the moment when they took a deep breath, when they reined in their nerves. But Chuck was doing the opposite: his external attention no longer needed, he had loosened his mental grip and spiraled introspectively.

_who are you? better person better person who are you who are you who are you?_

It began with a picture of a little boy. A miniature aircraftman in Royal Australian Air Force dress blues.

_do I look like Dad just like you Herc so he really is mine you shush just like Dad just like Dad I want to just like Dad God help me if both my boys are in the military Scott too your poor mother no son it you wear it like this_

A laugh. The hat falls over his eyes.

Information was processed in the drift the way it was processed in a dream: suddenly Stacker was fully informed without being cognizant of ever having learned anything. He knew the picture had been taken on a breezy summer day when Chuck was six, he knew that Chuck was aware of the copy that Herc always carried in his wallet, he knew they went for ice cream afterwards and Chuck had sat on Herc's lap and they had watched the sea gulls outside the window, and he knew that little boy had wanted nothing more than to grow up to be exactly like his father.

At first Stacker assumed it was a memory Chuck had of looking at the picture. He could see where it hung enlarged in Grams house at the foot of the stairs above the table with the candy dish – _never any chocolate_! - in the room with the burgundy carpet, though he also saw Chuck, relatively recently, pulling it out of his father's wallet with walloping surprise, noting how it was worn and crinkled, noting the corrosion in the shape of a thumbprint in the corner. It took Stacker a few seconds to realize it all fit under the umbrella of a memory of Chuck observing his father remembering Chuck remembering finding the picture, remembering that day. The _mise-en-abyme_ continued infinitely, memories upon memories. Stacker perceived how the moment had been handed back and forth in the drift, details and points-of-view tacked on with each passing until neither man knew who remembered what except for the sensation of the burdensome, dwarfing Air Force jacket and Angela's tight emerald dress seen by eyes only as high as her waist that didn't appreciate how it hugged the curves of her breasts. Pride, affection, and admiration warred – the father who was a god, the son who made the sun shine and the flowers grow - until all that mattered was that they were each other's centers of the universe.

The sentiment flickered like a fledgling fire in the whipping wind. Chuck didn't build his self-worth upon the foundation of a single moment, decades-old. That was sand. He didn't view his relationship with his father as painted by the colors of that day. That was dust. If he's not the best, his father won't be proud of him. If he doesn't save the world, she should have lived.

All the same, Chuck clung to the image of his father, sitting on his bunk, staring at the eroded picture of the little boy in the RAAF uniform. The image for him was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds on a day that was just a little too cold. He felt his father's love like the rays – reassuring, restorative, nourishing. Fleeting.

Stacker sensed Chuck's subconscious feeling around for Herc's once again, eager to exchange the memory as they had always done, eager for the reassurance of his presence, eager for the contact. Eager for Herc's mind to say what his lips never did.

_you feel like there's nothing to talk about my son my son my son things I never said out loud my son that's my son nothing to talk about never said never said never said that's my son regret all the things I never said never said never said all the things I never said regret regret regret regret regret that's my son my son_

_MY SON._

Chuck inhaled sharply.

He reeled himself back in.

Stacker's eyes rolled over him unsurely.

"Whatever it is you want to say, I don't need to hear it," Chuck told him aloud without ever turning his head to look at the other man. He added a perfunctory "Sir" at the end.

Stacker nodded, chewing on the edge of his lip. He felt like there was something he ought to tell the boy, but he hadn't decided yet whether to critique or affirm. He let it drop, along with his expectation that Chuck would probe his mind for an evaluation of some kind. Most soldiers wanted to know what their commanders really thought of them. He was quickly learning what he supposed he should have already known: clearly, the only opinion that mattered to Chuck was Herc's.

"Two actives still in circle formation in the Guam quadrant. Code names Scunner and Raiju. Both Category four."

The announcement directed their attention back to the mission.

Chuck was warmed by his father's voice, and hearing the names of the Kaiju got his bloodlust pumping; Stacker could feel him itching to throw one of the nasty brawling punches that Striker Eureka was known for.

"I hope you can keep up," Chuck teased good-naturedly.

Stacker granted him a smile. "That won't be a problem."

"She's no Mark I."

"I'm well aware of her capabilities, Mr. Hansen."

Chuck grinned and then turned his eyes frontward.

"Jaegers, time to seal up and get ready to go swimming," Tendo informed them as the helicopters slowed and hovered over the drop zone.

Chuck shut the external ports while Stacker reminded the crews that this was a bomb run and not a battle. "You hold them off," he said to Raleigh and Mako, "we'll get to the Breach."

He could feel Chuck's swirling doubts, mirroring his own.

Stacker released Striker Eureka from the choppers' cables and she punched through the surface of the water with an explosive splash, then began her descent of seven thousand meters in near-darkness to the ocean floor. Chuck was as unsettled by the foreign environment as Stacker was; quietly they stared for a moment in wonder at the icy black, at the same time vast and suffocating. Chuck took comfort in the familiar surroundings of Striker's Conn-Pod, and he radiated with a love for the machine that Stacker found almost endearing. But when his roving eyes met the scaffolding that held his co-pilot and saw Stacker there instead of Herc, his mind bucked rebelliously.

Stacker sighed patiently. Dueling with the part of Chuck's subconscious that kept rejecting him like a bad transplant was beginning to take a toll, but the kid had only ever drifted with Herc, had been doing it regularly for six years, and they had been together in that Conn-Pod fighting Leatherback and Otachi less than a day ago. That he strained against this handshake - that his mind identified Stacker as an intruder - was understandable. They had been gliding downwards for five minutes, and he estimated they were only a third of the way, so there was time for Chuck to wrestle with his demons. Likely it was his last chance.

The drift is the surf. It can be turbulent, it can be calm. You're never on solid ground but you can navigate it if you keep your head, or the waves can bash you against the rocks. Chuck was caught in a riptide, marooned by the reminder that his father was not by his side.

_only reason we even speak only reason we even speak today is because we're drift-compatible only reason we even speak something really stupid you know me don't even need to speak catch you in the drift dad_

Unable to marginalize thoughts of his father completely, Chuck expertly steered away from his most emotionally-charged memories and focused on a single moment of the most ordinary quality. Stacker saw them lounging in their shared quarters. Chuck tosses a ball for Max, Herc reads at the desk. Stacker had to admit to a certain curiosity about what it was like between the two men when no one else was around, so he meandered after the rabbit.

It's an easy silence between them, comfortable. The silence of two people who know each other inside out. Still, there is a tension. Something latent. Stacker wasn't sure if he was the one sensing it, or if that was Chuck's perception.

"There's a letter from your Grams," Herc announces.

Chuck scoffs. "A letter? Why doesn't she just go online like everybody else?"

"You don't seem to mind your fan mail."

"I get _knickers _in my fan mail."

"I'll tell your Grams to send her knickers next time."

There's a pause, then Chuck, very much against his own will, bursts into laughter.

Herc has delivered the joke deadpan, but cannot keep a straight face at the sight of his son and cracks a grin. "She does send peppermint crisps, from time to time," he reminds him.

Just then Max drops his red ball, shiny with slobber, onto a towel at the foot of Herc's bunk.

"Oi!" Herc interjects as Chuck's laughter is renewed. "Off there! Bad dog!" he gently admonishes, lenient with the pet in ways he was never lenient with his child. "You taught him to do that," he then accuses.

But Stacker was not permitted to view the rest of the conversation – present-day Chuck's train of thought switched rails, chasing a new memory associated with the towel, and a new set of images washed over him: Herc, just out the shower, wrapped in the same towel – wet, muscled, immaculate; Herc, minutes later, digging through his underwear drawer; the same, on another day.

Chuck jettisoned the thread and began to think furiously about a series of innocuous images: Jaeger tech, trees, animals, foods_. really wanted pizza fucking heroes don't get a last meal like to see a whale really wish one would swim by wouldn't want it here though Kaiju blue or worse_ His efforts to obscure and suppress were crude and graceless but effective. Stacker wondered if he hadn't been doing it all along, but with more skill. Of course the one thing Stacker had expected him to conceal – his opinion of Stacker himself – he had done nothing to cloak: _hasn't seen combat in ten years and in a Mark I sure a good pilot back in the day but not this decade canceling the apocalypse I mean really? rubbish speech no one even cried_

A few words exchanged by Mako and Raleigh, meaningless without the context of their drift, broadcasted in their ears, and that brought Chuck all the way back.

After what Raleigh Becket had been through, Stacker hadn't been sure he would be able to complete a successful neural handshake. He truly had been his last and only choice. Losing your co-pilot, your _brother_, and while in the drift… That screwed you up in ways that couldn't be described or quantified or compared. Stacker could still hear his tormented screams, could still see his half-crazed eyes. Someone who had been through that was really the last person he wanted Mako drifting with…But they were a good team - adaptive and creative and supportive.

Predicting he would be nettled by the praise for Gipsy Danger's pilots, Stacker looked over at Chuck, but the young man was lurching in horror, still responding to witnessing first-hand Raleigh Becket's loss. The scream was a broken record, sinisterly repeating.

_couldn't couldn't couldn't couldn't go on bad enough just drifting without him fucking goodbye world or some such shit couldn't couldn't couldn't couldn't glad it's me doesn't need me like I need him deny it but I know it's true he'll be a mess though max'll whine and he'll wait he won't understand and dad'll be empty good no I don't mean that if we died we were supposed die together it was ok then better better better and ok it's too much too much that was right this is wrong_

The Jaeger's integrity was holding, but she creaked under the growing pressure. Each new meter of distance from the surface made it feel more and more like a one-way trip. The excessively practical Chuck had already internalized that reality, but a nagging flicker of hope was gradually drowning.

_should have said more said something more stupid fucking words easier without them I know but does he know does he know should have said something more should have hugged fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck get a grip stop acting like a bloody kid you're an embarrassment_

"I want my (mommy/)daddy" was a fairly easy (and fairly common) disposition to encounter in a co-pilot. Stacker took pity on Chuck and called out specifically to Herc for an update so that his son could hear his voice: "Sergeant Hansen, what's our depth?"

"6350 meters and counting." Herc's firm, rugged tones and engaging, familiar Aussie accent embraced them through their ear pieces. "Right on schedule."

Outwardly, Chuck was staring daggers at Stacker – the elder had not bothered to mask his assessment of Chuck's state, or his motivation for the briefing; and the younger was sufficiently abashed, resentful on top of that of Stacker's presumption and the level of intimacy achieved between them – but below he crackled with pleasure at the sound of his father's voice, and resonated with a hint of gratitude.

Visibility got even worse when the Jaegers touched down on the seabed and disturbed the deposited sediment. The detritus rose and clouded around them. "Pea soup," Chuck commented. Raleigh announced he was transferring to instrument readings and with a nod from Stacker Chuck followed suit.

Slogging through the silt was a challenge, but Stacker proved himself right when he and Chuck fell into rhythm with each other easily. "Half a mile to the ocean cliff. We jump. It's three thousand meters to the Breach."

Chuck shuddered at the abyssal depths of the Marianas Trench, and Stacker felt the same. "Half a mile? I can't even see a damn inch ahead!" Chuck complained. "How are we supposed to deliver the bomb?"

Tendo reported fast movement – "fastest Kaiju on record" - on Gipsy Danger's left, but none of the four pilots could see anything. Stacker, still blind, tracked Raiju's attack on Gipsy Danger through the frantic conversation between Tendo, Mako, and Raleigh. Scunner then made its approach, but Raleigh told Stacker and Chuck to run for the cliff.

He couldn't. He couldn't leave Mako. He couldn't leave Gipsy to fight off two Kaiju – the largest they had ever seen, the fastest they had ever seen, in an environment that favored them – all by herself. He couldn't leave his little girl. "Mako…" he whispered.

_bloody hell knew this would happen family's trouble if they're not in your Jaeger fucking soft the plan's the plan Striker's the fastest this is it Dad sent me to die it's your turn this is it this is it this is it_

Chuck was not as tolerant of Stacker's familial weakness as Stacker had been of his. He shouted: "This is our window! Sir!"

He was right, of course. There was too much at stake. And this was it. This was the plan and this was the moment. If they didn't go, Mako still died, along with everyone else.

"You saw them fight Leatherback and Otachi. They can handle this," Chuck reassured him in the drift. Stacker didn't believe that he meant it but he didn't press. He conceded, and they trudged forward. But even Striker Eureka's speed was no match for the swimming Scunner. The Kaiju intercepted them and bit down. "It's trying to catch the payload!" Chuck deduced angrily.

Gracefully they dislodged themselves and then dodged Scunner's jaws nearly all the way to the precipice. Chuck was the first to notice that they gained some distance. He felt a flooding of hope, but Stacker pinpricked it: "Wait. It's stopping. Why is it stopping?"

"I don't give a damn. We're a hundred meters from the jump!"

The currents created by the promontory were drawing the silt away and the alien hellscape unveiled for them, a minefield of crags, magmatic geysers, and apocalyptic demons.

Herc was urging them on: "Take the leap now!"

Stacker agreed reluctantly and the proceeded forward, until chaos exploded in their ears. "LOCCENT, Scunner has broken off pursuit. We are less than one hundred meters from the jump location to the Breach. What's the problem there?" he demanded.

Breathless, Drs. Geiszler and Gottlieb explained that the Breach would require Kaiju DNA in order to open for passage. "You have to fool the Breach into thinking you have the same code!"

"How the hell are we supposed to do that?" Chuck asked, experiencing the same sinking feeling that Stacker was. The answer was what they both dreaded: The Kaiju Express. That the scientists had learned this from drifting with a Kaiju brain eliminated any chance it was a faulty theory. The two pilots exchanged a fatalistic look.

"Long odds before, anyway. We knew it was a snake when we picked it up, as my Grams would have said," Chuck philosophized wryly.

Stacker admired Chuck Hansen in that moment - not as a pilot, but as a man. He had his whole life ahead of him – young, clever, good-looking, a hero - what a life it would have been. He _wanted_ to live - he wanted to go back to his uncle and Grams, to his dog, to his father. He wanted to eat and breathe and love in a Kaiju-free world. But as long as the mission was accomplished, he was OK. Stacker thought it would be easier for himself – he was already dying, after all – but Chuck accepted the mortal development with the same aplomb as the marshal. Like his co-pilot, he was only afraid of failing.

"Sir! I have a third signature emerging from the Breach!" Tendo cried, echoed by Herc a second later.

Stacker sighed heavily. A triple event. Gottlieb was right. "How big is it? What Category?"

"Striker, it's a Category five. The first ever," Herc answered, grave.

Stacker sighed heavily again.

Chuck analyzed his father's voice, tracing tendrils of timbre and strands of sentiment. Stacker could sense both his frustration and his pride in his father's taut control over his nerves and emotions. Sometimes you didn't want your father to be a badass. Sometimes you wanted to hear his desperate distress. Hercules Hansen didn't give you that. You had to rile him up if you wanted to hear him out of sorts, but that was only anger. It wasn't always enough.

The Cat 5 was truly fearsome to behold as she ascended from Challenger Deep, larger than life, sleek, and ugly as fuck. "My God."

"Bitch is big," Tendo observed with his typical eloquence.

"Don't use that word. Call it 'Slattern', if you must," Stacker chastised. Tendo followed through.

Raleigh proposed they fight in a standard two-Jaeger formation, but he wasn't even able to finish speaking before Raiju was at Gipsy again. Stacker and Chuck were too busy retreating from Slattern to think about doubles strategy. But the Kaiju was gearing up: Stacker told Chuck to brace for impact just in time as Slattern dispatched them hurtling against a bluff.

It took the pilots and their vessel a moment to recover. Stacker opened his eyes sluggishly to sparks, drips, and Chuck's frenzied inflection: "The release is jammed! We can't deliver the payload, Sir!" He jiggled the controls with a dexterous and delicate touch. "We're still armed. But the hull is compromised! Half our systems are offline, Sir." His thoughts were less articulate:_ Striker! fuck fuck fuck fuck this was it three Kaiju and the fucking release jammed motherfucking fuck_

Slattern was assailing them again before anything could be done. She waltzed Stiker another two hundred meters back from the trench, the Jaeger immobilized and helpless in the monster's arms. She loosened for a second and it was all the time Stacker and Chuck needed in order to dig Striker's sting blades into the softer flesh of her armpits. They held fast, twisting the daggers, then gave a mighty kick and sent her careening. Her glowing, azure blood haloed around her as she roared thunderously, enraged.

_Well done_, Stacker thought, and Chuck nodded at him, appreciative.

The tactic reminded Chuck of what he and his father had pulled against Insurrector a year earlier in Los Angeles. Images of Herc laughing flashed in the drift, high on adrenaline. Chuck accidentally forced the recollection on him so viscerally that Stacker actually saw Herc beside him in the Conn-Pod for a split second, proud and having fun. Herc patted his son on the back in the Shatterdome afterwards in front of everyone, then handed him a beer.

Chuck was choking on the memory.

The amount of hurt inflicted on Slattern would hardly be something to celebrate in a normal engagement, but proving the behemoth wasn't invincible felt like a precious triumph. The jubilee was short-lived, however: Scunner was making a beeline for Striker and Slattern was hardly out-of-commission.

Mind on their next move, Chuck played out several potential attacks in his head, anticipating what effect they would have, and how Slattern might be able to retaliate. He browsed through his bank of Kaiju, comparing their designs to that of Slattern and Scunner, remembering what blows had been landed on them and how they had gone down, but he wound up drawing on his fight with Raleigh, probably - Stacker mused darkly - because it was the first fight he had ever squarely lost, in or out of a Jaeger.

He reasoned strategically for a few seconds, recalling how he had allowed Raleigh to twist his arm into a vice and how that might have been avoided, but that clarity dissolved into a mosaic of memories, prismatic and privileged. Stacker was still a student in the field of the workings and mechanisms of Chuck Hansen's mind, but the crash course was nearly over and he could recognize the signs of a regression. He diagnosed the plummet at the brink, but not in time to prevent the fall.

"Hey! Hey! _Enough_!"

Chuck can't see his father, but he hears him. The pressure evaporates; Raleigh lets go.

_hey this is over you're a Ranger for Christ's sake why don't you start acting like one who are you why why didn't I make you a better person_ _why don't you start acting like one_

His father holding him back. His father grasping the front of his jacket, both hands. The warmth of his father's hands, he can feel their warmth through his t-shirt. His father pulling on his jacket. His father's fingers, they incidentally brush over the base of his neck as he grips his collar.

_don't notice don't react don't look don't think about it don't remember it_

_don't remember it_

His father holding him back. He wants to surge forward and pop Raleigh in his smug face again, but his father intentionally puts pressure on his injured arm to check him. He swallows a pained yelp. He likes it.

It excites him.

_stupid Raleigh swaggers in here like he's our fucking savior I'm the best it's all I've got Dad wants to be his best friend stupid fucking Raleigh he's gonna get us all killed_

_want to come back from this mission quite like my life want to come back_

Fingers sliding across his neck, elbow against his bicep, both hands.

His father growls in his ear. "This is over. You're a Ranger for Christ's sake. Why don't you start acting like one?"

He shoves him off.

He remembers it in the next drift. Him and his father linked in Striker, watching impotently from the Miracle Mile as Leatherback and Otachi have their way with the Weis and the Kaidonovskys, and he notices that his father notices that he keeps replaying it in his mind. Reliving it. Not the fight. He's over the fight. But the touch. His father holding him back. His father _holding_ him. His father's fingers and his father's breath on his neck.

Herc is taken aback. Flustered. His reaction is ambiguous at first, then ably and cautiously guarded. Chuck scratches at the wall, but he gives nothing away.

Other memories, older memories - less detailed, less vibrant - stream below. Memories of the same nature. Tactile moments and looks exchanged. Missed opportunities for the same.

Chuck recoils. He recoils from his father in the past, he recoils from Stacker in the present. He recoils from his own regrets.

_should have hugged him _

_fuck_

He vibrates with regret.

What Stacker had seen was adequate for him to comprehend why Chuck was squirming under the inevitable scrutiny of their drift. Stacker let him know that he didn't care. The neural handshake suffered when you judged your co-pilot. That was what had torn apart Herc and Scott. It wasn't so much what Scott had done, it was the break down of equality and trust between them. Their drift had become diseased.

Chuck needed his support, and, so close to the end, it was what he deserved.

"Hang on, Striker! We're coming to you." Gipsy Danger pushed herself weakly to her feet, still recuperating from the loss of her arm. Raleigh had spoken, he wanted to help them, but Stacker knew Mako was the prime mover. Mako… Even though it wasn't the plan, even though he was dying anyway, she would still try to save him.

"No! Gipsy, do not come to our aid!" Stacker yelled as forcefully as he could. "Do you copy? Stay as far back as you can!" He addressed Raleigh - he needed him to take charge when the fiercely-loving Mako might resist: "Raleigh, listen to me. You know exactly what you have to do! Gipsy is nuclear! Take her to the Breach!"

Raleigh agreed, but Gipsy wasn't stirring.

Stacker removed his helmet. He was beyond needing it and the freedom was the only good thing left to experience. "Mako, listen," he said quietly, personally. "You can finish this. I'll always be here for you. You can always find me in the drift."

He needed to hug her. He needed to kiss her temple and brush away her tears. He needed to hold her so tight that she would always feel his embrace. He needed to look her in the eyes again so that she could see in his that he would never let something like death stand in the way of him watching out for her.

Chuck knew his father was hearing the same words. _Catch you in the drift, Dad. _It seemed right to him, somehow, that he would continue to exist only in a place where his father could find him.

Chuck already knew where Stacker's thoughts were tending – he yanked off his helmet and tossed it away carelessly - but for the LOCCENT's sake they discussed aloud: "What can we do, Sir?"

"We can clear a path for the lady."

Tendo was wise to his meaning: "They're gonna detonate the payload," he said gently to Herc, though everyone, including Mako, could hear.

Scunner had just joined ranks with Slattern, and Chuck knew exactly how to voice his opinion: "Well, my father always said-he said if you have the shot, you take it!" Chuck judged it was sound advice from a smart man, and the idea of a good shot at the enemy pleased him.

The Hansens knew how to hit the nail on the head, Stacker thought with some amusement, but he couldn't match Chuck's weak smile. It wasn't fair that he had to take this bright young warrior with him. But the escape pod was compromised – totaled, jammed, and offline.

"So let's do this!" Chuck met his eyes. "It was a pleasure, Sir." He meant it.

Stacker could only nod back heavy-heartedly, guilt coursing through his veins as he thought about Herc, his friend, who had lost his home and his wife to Kaiju only to give everything but his life to the cause of battling them, and who now had to watch his only child die in the final fight. Chuck might have been insecure about his importance in his father's life but Stacker had seen enough – in and out of the drift – to know that Chuck was Herc's everything.

It was not necessary for Stacker to say anything else. They all knew. Chuck knew he had Stacker's respect, Raleigh knew he had Stacker's trust, Mako knew she had Stacker's love.

The Kaiju were about to learn exactly how he felt about _them_.

He and Chuck armed the payload, and he could sense everyone who was watching, everyone who cared about them, taking a deep breath. "_Sensei, aishitemasu_," Mako snuck in at the last second, her voice thick with tears.

It broke his heart. _I love you, too_, he thought.

Chuck burned with jealousy and resentment. He waited for his father to say something, knew that he wouldn't, but waited all the same. It was a violent and brutal silence, it left him crushed and wrung.

But Hercules Hansen never knew the right thing to say, or when to say it. He couldn't say a little when he felt a lot, and he couldn't say a lot because that wasn't who he was. Stacker knew that, and Chuck knew it too. And Chuck loved everything about him.

_For them_, Stacker nodded to Chuck. _For the world._


End file.
